


talk me down

by GreenTam



Series: blue and green [1]
Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, coda 1x07, dick is a good guy, gar is 21, gar starts to experience the 'beast' part of his powers, the underage is only referenced briefly and isnt with dick, they've had a really long day okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 08:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenTam/pseuds/GreenTam
Summary: I wanna sleep next to you, but that's all I wanna do right now.-Larry’s head tilted slightly Gar’s way, signalling to the youth that he was looking his way. “Oh sure, our Gar’s gonna go out and marry a *girl*”Garfield’s face flushed.





	talk me down

**Author's Note:**

> I.. I don't know what this is but it came to me and it's written late at night instead of sleeping. Gar just has a big ass crush on Dick okay? okay.
> 
> Also even though Gar acts more naive, this episode especially tells me he's older than he seems and tbh I always find it hilarious when 20+ actors are suppose to be teenagers. So for the purpose of this fic and my hc, Gar is 21 at the very least.

He was six years old and his parents had settled in Nairobi for a short while. Under rich gold sunlight he remembered how the ball flew into the air from the kicks of kids running around playing a game of soccer together; he was paler than any of the children around him, striking him out easily to his onlooking mother.

Gar remembered looking up at her, noticing how the air seemed to ripple from the heat, and seeing her with a hand to shield her eyes from the sun smiling at him from the sidelines. She’d waved at him and he’d given a flurry of a wave back.

Her hair had lightened from the hot sun. In his mind’s eye she has a halo around her crown but in reality his memory of her face in that moment was foggy and fading by the day.

Those tiny details were just his imagination filling in the blanks.

He was six years old and a boy he would forget the name of pulled Gar away from the vision of his mother among the crowd of socialising parents. The boy had huge brown eyes and the biggest smile Gar had ever seen on such a small face, and his hand was pleasantly cool in Gar’s palm as he spoke to the other boy in a language Gar was too young and too new to to understand.

Fifteen years later, Gar would find himself wondering whether he should feel guilty, or some other self deprecating emotion, over the fact that he could recall the feel of that boy’s hand in his clearer than his mother’s hair lifting gently in a hot breeze.

 

* * *

 

Eleven years old and staring out the window looking out at the thick snow coating Switzerland, Gar leaned in to breathe on the glass.

He drew a tiger.

“You’re good at drawing” His newest temporary friend, Luca, noted. The blond boy reached over and added a bee next to the tiger, and Gar’s breath stopped at how close the other was. “My sister can draw too but she always draws stupid things: like princesses and flowers”

The overcast sky outside covered Luca in an even light, and at the angle bent across Gar to reach, Gar could see how the clouds made the boy’s blue eyes appear crystalline and grey. To Garfield it felt like the moment stretched on for minutes, but as quickly as his fogged breath faded on the glass, Luca moved away and slid down the plush leather sofa so his knees hit the thick carpet.

“If I could draw like you two I would draw Batman” The Swiss boy admitted, shuffling along the ground to the table where a heap of paper and some felt tip pens were left. “Last time I tried I just made him look like a sausage man”

Calming down a raging blush across his cheeks, Gar bit at his lip as he walked over to the table with hands fumbling at his sleeves. It had been a while since he’d had a friend he could talk to so easily, the older he got the more language barriers became a problem, and he put down the feelings fluttering in his stomach to the novelty of a common tongue.

“Batman?” Gar asked, he’d never heard of that name before. “That a cartoon or?”

Oblivious to his friend’s shaking words and pink cheeks, Luca’s head snapped up with jaw slack. “You don’t know who Batman is?”

Sinking onto the floor next to Luca, Gar’s breathing hitched and his eyes widened in surprise when Luca leaned in close once again: only this time Luca was facing him, expression open and… pretty.

Gar shook his head. “My parents… they um, they move me around a lot. I know all kinds of cartoons, movies and stuff. But sorry, not this Batman guy. Is he cool? Do you have any of his shows or-”

Luca laughed, loudly and maybe a touch condescending but the image is too striking for Gar to feel embarrassed. He’s filled with the same flutter as when he was much younger holding hands with another pretty faced boy.

“Are you five? No, Batman isn’t a dumb cartoon, or a comic, or a movie, stupid” Luca scoffed, and the insult hit Gar hard in the chest. “He’s an American vigilante, he’s real like Superman is”

“Vigilante?” Gar questioned.

Before Luca could reply their parents arrived home. The bubble of boredom burst to the sound of four adults laughing and kicking their snow clogged feet against the metal bars, and the babysitter putting Luca’s sister down for a nap thundering down the stairs to accept her money and get on with her night elsewhere. Both boys dutifully rose to meet their respective parents at the door, Luca’s parents had taken their coats off while Gar’s own were still layered in puffy parkas.

They weren’t staying any longer then. Gar realised with an odd mix of disappointment and relief.

One day he would stop feeling like luggage his parents carted around the world and more like a companion who got to share in all their adventures. The day would come, he was sure of it, where they would accept his pleas to let him help them and believe his promises that he wouldn’t get in the way. He could feel useful rather than sitting in someone’s house pretending that he didn’t mind playing friends with another kid he’d likely never meet again.

“It was wonderful to meet you both, if you have time do stop by the lab tomorrow before you leave” Luca’s mother said to Gar’s, and the two women lean in to kiss each other on each cheek. A European thing apparently.

As Gar put his coat on and balanced to pull on each boot, he heard Luca’s mother say something to him in German. His German isn’t anywhere near as good as his French but he gathered what she meant by the way the woman nodded in his direction, her hand encouragingly tapping Luca’s shoulder.

The look Luca gave Gar made him want the ground to swallow him whole. Mocking.

Stupid.

Stupid for not knowing who Batman was.

“Good-bye Garfield” Luca said and suddenly he didn’t look so pretty anymore.

Gar’s disheartened ‘bye’ back went unnoticed.

 

* * *

 

At sixteen Garfield was finally allowed to help his parents out on one of their cases. He’d been home schooled on all kinds of procedures and how to prepare before going anywhere near a sample.

The team was a small base deep in the rain forest of Kinabalu Park, and Garfield was the youngest member. It made him the assistant to everyone else, spending his days running to and from each tent, base and camp with arms full of anything from precious samples to a trunk of mundane paperwork

It made him everyone’s monkey, so a young man named Connor said.

“Thank fuck it’s not me anymore” Connor had grinned, slapping Gar on the back like they were old friends.

Dark eyes and a wide smile. Gar’s biggest weakness.

Two years before Gar had been cornered by a girl his age in South Africa for an unexpected first kiss. It had been brief, dry and awkward, and when she pulled away the scandalised expression on Gar’s face had her bursting into tears and fleeing the scene. A moment in Garfield’s life he would have loved to forget as easily as his mother’s fly away hair in the hot Kenyan sun but the scene is grimly burned into his memory forever.

This time… this time when Gar was cornered in one of the specimen storage rooms his body drifted forward not back: he didn’t shirk away from an unwanted touch, but sighed as a warm hand tilted his chin up. The pads of Connor’s warm fingers close against the curve of his neck. Despite teasing from others over the years, Garfield has never been concerned with being shorter than most other men: in fact in that moment he _adored_ it.

Connor’s lips were chapped and cold, wet from the rain outside, but his tongue felt burning hot stroking over Gar’s parted mouth. Under the buzzing overhead light in the claustrophobic storage unit Garfield’s eyelashes fluttered across his cheekbones.

If Gar hadn’t already worked out he was gay, _this_ would have done the trick.

Two weeks later he turned seventeen and for his birthday Connor pinned him to the wall of the storage unit, the very same they had shared their first kiss and several other hurried kisses since, and put his hand down the front of Garfield’s pants while nibbling a line down the racing pulse in Gar’s neck.

Three days after that his parents announce that they have a flight to Singapore and Connor’s too busy out on a week long excursion to be there when the Logan’s leave the base.  


* * *

 

At the age of nineteen Garfield was elated to find out that among the names of people working on his parent’s team in Congo was Connor.

Fantasies about lovers reunited play in his mind and having him floating up in the clouds.

Floating.

Floating.

And then it all came crashing down.

* * *

 

Twenty-one and surrounded by a family peculiar beyond belief, Garfield had to bite his lip when his birthday party spiralled into a heated argument over what was best for him.

“Chief, come on, you gotta admit it’s not healthy for the kid to be cooped up in here all the fucking time” Cliff groused, dropping all attempts to cool Rita and Larry down and instead siding with them. At the head of the table, the birthday boy dry swallowed a mouthful of beans, head ducked and voice never once raised to give his own opinion.

The aged man glared at Cliff. “I would ask that you not use such language when talking to me, Cliff. As for this petty discussion, it is over, now!”

His hand slammed on the table, clattering cutlery and bone china plates, and the Chief wheeled away cutting a deep silence in his wake.

No sooner had the doors been closed did Larry sigh and cover his bandaged face with an equally bandaged hand.

Rita gave a mournful gasp torn straight from her classical movies. Her skin rippled as her control waned.  “It’s just not right! Garfield should be out in the world living his life. He shouldn’t be in here with us for his twenty-first he should be-”

“Out getting drunk!” Cliff interjected. “Go out and paint the town. Have some fun. Pick up a hot chick or two”

Larry snorted, shaking his head as if something Cliff said was superbly funny, while Garfield wanted to disappear into the ground.

“Quite! Garfield should be out in his finest” She reached across to place a gloved hand over Gar’s. She looked at him through Hollywood lashes and doe eyes made for the silver screen. “One day, darling, you’ll go out and meet a nice girl: get married, have a family of your own. There’s no reason for you to be kept here”

The silence that followed was brief, yet dramatic as often Rita’s speeches did end.

An unconvinced, almost sarcastic hum sounded from Larry opposite her. His chin rested on the heel of his palm and were his face visible, Gar imagined it would look something like the Willy Wonka meme.

Larry’s head tilted slightly Gar’s way, signalling to the youth that he was looking his way. “Oh sure, our Gar’s gonna go out and marry a _girl_ ”

Garfield’s face flushed.

Cliff’s neck creaked as he and Rita exchanged perplexed looks.

 

* * *

 

The Chief had made him naive and his life travelling around the world with his parents had left him sheltered, but Gar was not a child. At least he didn’t think so.

That was until he crushed a man’s rib cage in his jaws.

_Show us what you are._

He shivered.

He never realised how innocent he was until he lost it. Until a beast inside him decided enough was enough, no more torture: _this_ is what I am.

In the room next to him he can hear Rachel sleeping fitfully and her biological mother muttering in her sleep: something about the last transformation had left him with senses he usually left behind in the tiger. He can hear a stranger on the other side shuffling through the motions of brushing their teeth: he can smell a whiff of mint.

Three doors down is Kory’s empty room. She was on the roof with a bottle of whiskey and had been for the last hour. She’ll likely spent the whole night up there.

The final door along the corridor, room nineteen, is Dick’s room.

Gar checked his key was in his pocket before sliding out of his room, his steps quieter than ever as he padded down the motel hallway. He could be imagining it but he feels more fluid, more graceful, and there’s a thumping in his chest urging him on.

This is a bad idea, he’s likely going to get rejected and left embarrassed at best and humiliated and with an aching loss of a budding friend or two at worst, but the thought of turning back makes something inside him snarl disapprovingly.

He itched for something. He was restless.

He felt hot.

Too hot.

Gar hasn’t a clue what he’s doing when he timidly knocks on Dick’s door. His bare toes curl into the flat, lifeless carpet beneath him and the time between knocking and hearing movement within is so long that Gar nearly retreats back to his room to continue to prowl until the sun rose.

But just as he’s about to step back he hears Dick’s light steps moving inside. Bed springs squeaking.

The younger man can smell the damp and the scent of soap on Dick’s hair before the former Robin even opens the door. Dick had showered some time ago, washed away the blood and the sweat, and gotten dressed for bed.

Like Gar his feet are bare. It’s a strangely vulnerable look for a man Gar had idolised for years and witnessed taking out a dozen or so guards alone.

Dick blinks at him in surprise, and the beast rumbles in displeasure at the thought that he was probably expecting Kory.

He has no idea what he’s going to say until he opens his mouth. “I can’t sleep”

The taller man seems to think it over, hesitant as he stands in the doorway, and Gar’s newly heightened senses zero in on the way Dick briefly purses his lips as he comes to a decision. He steps aside and tilts his head, inviting Gar in.

“It’s been a hard night” Dick reasons, closing the door behind Gar as the younger steps in.

Passing Dick blows a rush of scent through Gar’s nose and the beast purrs. There’s a rumbling sound but Garfield pays it no attention as he’s suddenly so close to Dick, the original Robin, and the cold tip of his nose is pressed to the thrumming dip in Dick’s clavicle. The rumbling gets louder, overshadowing a voice tiredly yet urgently saying his name, and Garfield mutely realises it’s him growling: deep and warm. The hands on his shoulders subtly shift from pushing to gripping when Gar’s tongue licks a line up Dick’s throat, biting gently when the man’s Adam’s apple bobs and a gasp passes Dick’s lips.

“Gar-” Dick says again, more breathless than Gar expected him to ever get over something the green haired guy did, but whatever he was going to finish that with gets cut off by Gar’s mouth on his. Garfield’s hands are up Dick’s shirt, fingers fanned over firm abs, and the beast keens happily when he feels Dick’s strong fingers rake up his scalp and his palms cup his face to reciprocate: to deepen.

When Connor used to kiss him, he would hold onto Gar tightly and whisper that he was a good boy. The memory, formerly so treasured, now leaves a bitter feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Good boy. Connor would say.

Good boy. Chief would praise, giving him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

Be a good boy, the doctor would insist. Be a good boy and show us what you ARE-

Dick’s hands aren’t gripping in heat like Connor’s used to, they’re stroking through green locks rhythmically: carefully coaxing Gar away from the echoing memories of the cage and the suffocating control of Chief’s household. With a whimper Gar is drawn into the slower pace Dick begins to set, thumbs smoothing over his temples, and it’s so much softer than any kiss Connor ever gave him.

The green fades from his hands as they move away from Dick’s skin, and instead fist bunches of the other man’s shirt. The kiss is languid now. A far cry from the sudden frenzy Gar initiated. He feels like he’s going to drop to the ground, but at the same time his head feels secure in Dick’s careful grasp and his breathing shakes when Dick’s lips leave his and instead dust small kisses across his cheekbones and the arch of his nose.

“It’s okay, Gar” Dick whispers into his skin, pressing another kiss between Gar’s eyebrows, over his third eye. Whatever fire had been building in Gar feels extinguished and has left him open like a raw nerve. The final press of a kiss to his forehead cuts his strings and the shorter man sags into Dick’s hold. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Come on, come on, it’s okay”

Pliant and exhausted, Gar lets himself he led over to the bed. Dick’s movements are measured and light as he unzips Gar’s favourite jacket and respectfully drapes it over the bedside table.

Feeling small he stands there watching as Dick flicks back the covers of the bed and gets in, shuffling back to the other side to leave room for Gar. For a split second Gar hesitates.

Dick doesn’t move except to offer out a hand. Fingers lax and they look worn under the orange light of the side lamp. His small smile is a barest curve of perfect lips: a little puffy from their earlier activity.

Dark eyes. Gar’s biggest weakness.

The bed is just as uncomfortable as his own, the sheets scratchy, but Dick’s shirt and skin are soft, and Gar gives a little sigh as he snuggles down closer and feels Dick pull the sheets over them both. One of Dick’s arms hooks under him, curling around his ribcage and it opens up Dick’s shoulder for Gar to nuzzle his nose in, while the other one drapes over him and hooks around so one of Dick’s large hands threads into the hair on the back of Gar’s head. The stroking motions lift pleasant shivers down Gar’s spine but it’s soothing not arousing.

This isn’t where he thought this would end and he’s grateful. Even if when day breaks he and Dick never breathe a word of this ever again, and Gar goes back to sending admiring glances at Dick who’s too busy casting Kory the same, he’s content to sit and enjoy the moment while it lasts.

The light is still on but neither of them move to turn it off.

“You’re purring” Dick whispers after a while and Gar finally melts into slumber at the fondness in the older man’s voice.

The last thing he feels is Dick pressing a kiss to the top of his head and the last thing he sees is the light from the lamp haloing Dick’s hair.


End file.
